‘Putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm’: Rutherford County parent says rezoning is not a solution
Hundreds of students in the district will be forced to change schools.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - Many parents of students in Rutherford County Schools (RCS) said they’re disappointed in the board’s vote to pass their rezoning plans.
“I believe that the school board didn’t listen to its constituents, and didn’t listen to the residents of Rutherford County,” district parent Charlie Eblen said. “I started a petition and within 24 hours, I had a couple hundred people that said they were against this rezoning.”
Eblen said his children’s school district has been changed four times in the last five years. His two kids will switch from Blackman schools to Siegel schools. Their commute will now go from a few minutes to a matter of hours. On top of time, he said money and safety are concerns.
“The average financial cost is going to be $5,000 plus a year for us to go to Siegel,” he said. “Figure out how to resolve the problem and move forward so our kids can have stability, so they can build friendships with other children, build friendships with the teachers, and build friendships with the people that they interact with every day.”
He said rezoning every few years is only “putting a Band-Aid on a broken arm.”
“Okay, let’s rezone. Sure. Let’s do it. Well, are we going to rezone again next year? Are we going to rezone the year after that? It doesn’t solve it,” he said. “So we just continuously perpetuate a problem that just doesn’t need to exist. We need to actually figure out how to solve the problem.”
“We need to as residents, and as a school board, put a comprehensive plan together to get the financing, get the funding, get the approval, buy the land, and build new schools,” he said.
The Director of Schools for Rutherford County said they don’t want to rezone any students.
“Unfortunately, we have open seats in schools,” Dr. Jimmy Sullivan said, “and before we can go and ask for additional funding to build more schools, we have to make sure we use the current seats that we have.”
Eblen said Sullivan isn’t doing enough to fight for money on behalf of the district.
“[Dr. Sullivan] has gotten very good at saying that over and over again,” Eblen said. “As the Director of Schools, it’s his job to stand up and say, ‘No, we need the funding. We can’t rezone because we have children traveling hours upon hours a day going to school.’”
Frances Rosales is the board member who represents families in the majority of the rezoned areas. In a statement to the media, she echoed many of Eblen’s concerns about masking the overcrowding issue:
“My concern is that without the firm commitment for funding new building projects -- such as a new middle school, a new high school, and possibly two new additions -- it is not the time to pursue rezoning the middle school and high school boundary lines. We’re possibly looking at the possibility of rezoning once again and adding portables in overcrowded schools in 2028 if the board does not get the funding for the middle and high schools.”
“This isn’t fun for anybody,” school board member Katie Darby said during Tuesday’s meeting. “Nobody enjoys rezoning. We don’t, y’all don’t, nobody likes it. We do have to understand the reality of where we are, and unfortunately, some of those zone lines have to be moved. If it’s not me or you, it’s somebody over there, but it’s someone somewhere, and I do believe the board is trying to make the decision for the county as a whole, for the majority of our students and staff as a whole.”
The board adopted the rezoning plan Tuesday night, and it is the plan moving forward. Part of that plan is to review construction progress and enrollment patterns again in nine months, but the plans stand unless the board decides later that adjustments are needed.
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